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Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Feeling Dr. King

Yesterday,
Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I felt
the need to do something. What? I am not sure. It is the same every year. I go through the hullabaloo of
Thanksgiving-School break for my kids-Christmas-New Year-my anniversary. And by the time my wife and I have had our
one night getaway; it is time to get back in the normal rhythms of life. At that point, I am not ready for another
special event.

Then MLK day rolls around. Our school system makes the Tuesday afterward
a teacher work day so the kids have a 4-day weekend. I don’t take either day off, the Monday or
the Tuesday. I’ve been so out of the ordinary
with the holidays, I just want to rediscover my work flow. My saint of a wife is left with the three
kids as they climbing up the walls wanting to go outside.

However, a part of me experiences something
else. There’s an itch in me to do something. Dr. King’s courageous, visionary leadership
focused and drove the civil rights movement that saved our country. His posture was conciliator. He dreamed a world in which people are for
one another and everyone is seen – seen as a human being of worth regardless of
race or another factor.

What divides people? Black v. White; American v. Immigrant; Rich
v. Middle Class v. Poor; Healthy v. Disabled; political parties; Old V.
Young. All these divisions and more have
polarizing potential. When the
differences are overcome and people help people and join each other in true
friendship, Dr. King’ vision becomes reality.
It happens over and over.

I witnessed one example. I know of a woman who receives food
stamps. As an act of her Christian
discipleship, she tithes on what she receives.
She buys groceries and donates some of them. Yesterday, on MLK Day, I got to deliver the
groceries she bought. She doesn’t do it
to bring attention to herself. She is
serving Jesus. If she can find a pastor
to actually deliver the food, it is good for both her and the recipient. No one wants to be on the receiving end of
charity. A pastor is a good
intermediary, someone to protect the anonymity of the giver and the dignity of
the recipient.

That was my role on MLK Day. As a pastor, I got be the go-between as a
woman, a black woman, helped a white woman, someone she had never met. She was giving food, and the gratitude was
painted all over the face of the recipient.
After my 11-year-old son and I dropped off the food, we went on with our
day.

I believe Dr. King, walking with Jesus in
Paradise, smiled. In this story, race
was never an issue. It was a case of
giving a cup of cold water in Jesus’ name (Mark 9:41). It is a story of people helping each other
because that’s what followers of Jesus do.

Next month is African American history
month. I usually observe that time by
reading. One year I read A Testament of Hope (an anthology of Dr.
King’s speeches). I started reading that
book in February and spent the rest of the year finishing (it is over 600
pages). Last year, in February I began African American Religious Thought. It is almost 1100 pages and in 2013, I read
about 975. I will finish it in February
2014.

All this reading and the MLK day service
projects and observances only work as symbols of the need and ongoing work of
combating our racist heritage. Society must
move beyond ‘African American history’ to recognize all the stories and meaning
in American history. More than MLK Day
service projects, America needs to be a culture of service – people helping
each other instead of advancing themselves at their neighbor’s expense. When that becomes the ethos of America, the
ethos of service done in love, then we will find ourselves nearer to something
more than Dr. King’s vision. We will
taste the Kingdom Dr. King dreamed of, the one envisioned by Jesus, the Kingdom
of God.

I think, when MLK Day comes, and I find myself
not ready but feeling something, that is it.
Dr. King was a prophet of the Kingdom of God. Even unaware, I yearn for it. I long for it. I pray for it. In that Kingdom, hungry people won’t need to
help each other. None will go
hungry. All will be blessed. Thank you, Dr. King, for your voice reminding
me to seek that blessing.

1 comment:

Most Americans, particularly the white folks think of Dr King as a force for helping to free black folks. Not so. Dr King help free all of us. His courageous, inspirational life has as much to do with freeing white folks as black. As his life message works in us, we see we are freed from the lies created by prejudice, discrimination and oppression. As the dominate group in society, we have, at best, been ignorant of the oppression our on attitudes and patterns of behavior and speech has produced. To live as a minority in America often means experiencing slights and pervasive discrimination. Why, for example, are their so few African-American coaches in NCAA sports? Dr King recognized that we must go beyond the laws into the change of values and norms so that oppression is eliminated from our societal fabric. "The Dream" that Dr King spoke about is the reality that the Kingdom of God is. Our work of representing and bringing the Kingdom of God into our world is made manifest as we drive deep into what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. As we are transformed by the life of following Jesus- as opposed to our cultural norm, we find the world around us begins to change and to begin to reflect this "Kingdom Come". Thanks to Dr King that all of us can begin to see beauty of a diverse world characterized by a unified heart around the purposes of the Living God.